Pain
by Em Mindelan
Summary: I was so in love with you, it nearly killed me. Vaughn POV, second-person.
1. Pain

TITLE: "Pain"  
SUMMARY: "I was so in love with you...it nearly killed me." Vaughn, second-person POV, post-Telling.  
RATING: PG/PG-13  
DISCLAIMER: You know, I really don't own them. Wish I did though... Hey, my birthday's coming up soon. Anyone want to give me them for my b-day? Really? Cool.   
AUTHOR's NOTES: I had to write this after seeing the AliasMedia clips from "The Two" and "Succession". Michael Vartan's acting in that scene with Syd in "Succession"........his eyes just looked so sad and haunted, it nearly broke my heart. This pain that Vaughn feels? I feel it too... But, my goodness, what a season this is going to be....  
  
Thanks so much to **sv4ever07** and **Old Romantic**, who really helped me out with betaing this fic. **Old Romantic** fixed up the ending so it just whoomps you with all it's emotion - it's a much better fic with her suggested ending...so, yeah, if you're crying at the ending of the fic - well, blame her.   
She really maximised the emotion in the last couple of lines........  
  
SUGGESTED SOUNDTRACK: "Colorblind" by Counting Crows and "Here Comes the Flood" by Peter Gabriel. But don't blame me if you cry. Really.   
  
  
**Pain**.  
  
_pain__._  
  
That's all you have anymore, except after too many bottles of alcohol, which just masks the pain just enough so you can sleep even a little and then again the next morning there is pain, returning again unbidden.  
  
You drink every even day, and recover every odd one, because really, you're not enough of a masochist to drink yourself stupid every day – not yet, anyway.  
  
So you drink yourself into oblivion on the Saturday and try to sleep off the pain on the Sunday.  
  
On the Monday and Tuesday, you repeat the pattern of drinking and sleeping, and on goes your life, except for Fridays, where you go and buy yourself enough alcohol to survive on for another week.  
  
Eric comes by every third day, so sometimes you're drinking and sometimes you're asleep, but you're always oblivious to his presence.  
  
He brings you food, but you don't eat it.   
  
He took Donovan with him after the first week, when he realized that you were too much of a wreck to take care of him.  
  
People talk to you, tell you how sorry they are, but you don't hear them, don't hear anything anymore except her.  
  
Everything else is just so much white noise.  
  
You can still hear her, clearly, her words running around and around and around inside your head, until you're not sure where she starts and where you end.  
  
And to be perfectly honest, you don't really care.  
  
This is where she belongs, and this is where you belong [_together._]  
  
You have conversations with her, these long, rambling chats like the ones that you'd always envisioned yourself having with her once you were happily married and settled down, living the normal life that she'd always wanted, rambling chats about nothing in particular that you'd never had time for, weather and cars and hockey and France and movies that you'd seen years ago.  
  
And one day she begins to talk back to you, and one day you reach a point where you can no longer separate your memories of before, the _real_ memories, even though that's a purely subjective term from your point of view these days, and the _fake_, which are nearly as real, almost more real than the real and then not even drinking is enough to dull the pain, this gut wrenching, physical ache that just hurts and hurts and it's this empty, dull gnawing feeling in your stomach that won't leave you alone and oh, how it hurts.  
  
It hurts. It just hurts, and you can't do anything about it, because the alcohol doesn't work anymore and all you can ever think about these days is her and all the things you did and all the things you never had the chance to do, all the words you never had the chance to say to her, and somehow that hurts all the more because you had so little time with her and you think that you would have kissed her so much sooner if you had known she'd have been taken from you so soon.  
  
You lie for hours at a time, on your bed, in the apartment she never saw, and sometimes you're horrified at the state you've let your apartment get into, with beer bottles everywhere and dirty clothes and pizza boxes all over the floor, because you know that she would have been horrified – and then you realise that it doesn't matter anymore, because there's no more Sydney to be disgusted by the state of your apartment, is there?  
  
You're sure that you had a job once, and maybe you enjoyed it once. But you're not sure that you've still got a job anymore, and to be perfectly blunt you don't really care, because it's not like you really need the money because money doesn't matter, and neither does any of the things it buys, because you're hurting so much inside that at this point you'd welcome death.  
  
There's nothing left of you anymore but the pain, and her, and the imaginary world you've created inside a corner of your brain, where you went to Santa Barbara and ate at La Superica, where you live happily, married with 2.5 kids, dogs and a minivan, where she's still alive and you're still sane.  
  
This is all that you are now:  
  
A hollow shell, a body that used to hold a man.  
  
_Emptyuselessshadowsofreality_  
  
Empty inside, out of place in the world since she died and left you behind, alone, _upsidedownandinsideout__._  
  
There is nothing left in the space that your heart used to occupy, because she took it with her when she left you here.  
  
Consumed by yourself  
and  
by   
_her_.  
  
You feel empty inside  
  
_hollow_  
  
Like you cannot breathe anymore  
  
_chestconstricting_  
  
You are not without feeling  
  
_there is too much feeling_  
  
All there is is a vacuum  
  
_sucking you down_  
  
And pain  
  
_It hurts so bad that you wish death would come quickly_  
  
You have fallen  
  
_without a safety net  
  
You have sinned, oh, sinned so much/leaving her there that night/loving her too much/drinking yourself to blackness so that if she was here she'd be appalled but then you remember that she's not here and so it doesn't really matter anymore does it_  
  
You have died inside.  
  
You are as empty as the room you're sitting in.  
  
But in the end, though, you're just a guy who stays up too late drinking and talking to his dead girlfriend.  
  



	2. Longing

Here we go with the Syd POV....it's called "Longing", and you know, if anyone wants to make a wallpaper for it....well, you know I'd love one.   
  
This one's set during "Succession", and we're doing the whole no-dialogue thing again.....[I think that these pieces are going to be entries in Cover Me's October Challenge, actually.]  
  
Thanks again to **Old Romantic** for the beta; she's doing a great job of making sure I don't look like an idiot.   
  
Oh, and apparently you might need tissues for this one. Big surprise, huh?   
  
**Longing**  
  
You spent a year and a half _eighteenmonthstoolong_ seeing him nearly every day and not being able to touch him.  
  
It was torture, absolute torment, like the water receding at Tantalus's feet every time he went to drink.  
  
You would hug him, touch his hand, make quiet promises in guarded words about what you would do after it was all over, because that's all that you could do.  
  
And then one day it was over, and you thought that maybe, just maybe, you could finally be happy, finally wake up in his arms every morning where you knew you belonged.  
  
You thought that maybe you wouldn't have to be a spy anymore.  
  
But someone up there doesn't like you very much, or so you think, because every time you think that you're finally happy, finally content, someone or something comes along to snatch it away from your grasp.  
  
You had six months of bliss, where he was yours to touch and kiss and hug and hold on to, where he was the first thing you saw in the mornings and the last thing you saw at night.  
  
Six months of being _complete_ for the first time in your life.  
  
Sure, you were still a spy, but you just had to catch Sloane, throw him away in a jail cell somewhere and it'd all be over and you'd just be free – free to be with him forever.  
  
You had never been as sure of something in your life before as you were of this: _that you would marry Michael Vaughn, because he loved you and you loved him and hey, you'd both be happy and have kids and dogs and a minivan and a house with a white picket fence. _  
  
You now think you'd never been so wrong about anything in your life.  
  
It's worse this time, the constant longing to _touchholdkissmakeyours_, because this time there is a wedding ring on his finger and a pretty wife somewhere who he must love because he really can't have changed enough in two years for him to have married someone he didn't love.  
  
But somehow you think that it would be easier to cope with if he _had_ changed enough to be married to someone he didn't love; because that would have meant that you weren't confronted by this thought every _dayhourminutesecond_ of your life:  
  
_What if he's found someone he loves more?_  
  
You can't help thinking back to Danny and how dead certain you were that you loved him.  
  
But you love Vaughn more than you ever loved Danny, however much it pains you to admit it, because after all Danny died because of you and surely you owe him _something_. But you can't escape that, because you love Vaughn more than you ever have...and more than you ever will love anything in your life and the idea that maybe he doesn't love you enough anymore scares you more than you've ever been scared before because, oh, you still love him so much [_too much_] and you can't have him anymore and the longing in the pit of your stomach, the longing that only he has ever been able to create – and satisfy – that longing has become nearly overwhelming and you haven't been back even a month.  
  
You stand in his classroom now, watching him as he packs away his things into his briefcase and all you want to do is break down and laugh hysterically at the irony of it all.   
  
This was supposed to be your classroom, and the CIA agent there to visit someone that they loved was supposed to be him.  
  
They've told you that he might be coming back to the CIA.  
  
It's hard to ever imagine him outside of the CIA, even as you stand here watching him in his classroom.  
  
But you just want him to know that…that you can live with him coming back to the CIA, because however much he may have hated the protocol which kept you apart, hated the bureaucracy and the paperwork – you know that he was made for his job.  
  
And you know that his job made him happy, in a strange sort of way, because he was doing what he had always wanted to do.  
  
And so you want him to come back to the CIA, because all you want is for him to be happy, even when it tears you apart and rips you into pieces seeing him there and not being able to touch him, his simple gold wedding ring _glaringburninghurting_ your eyes….  
  
It hurts you to see him, but you want him to come back because all you've ever wanted is for him to be happy, because, even after everything he's done and everything you've said to him - you still love him. And you always will.  
  
And so you tell him that you can cope with him coming back to the CIA.  
  
You don't know how he can live with the pain of seeing you, talking to you, talking about you, because the pain of seeing him here like this [_justoutofreach_]…the pain is physical and it's clenching and it's all those months in the warehouse combined and worse and that stupid ring just burns your eyes because it's the physical embodiment of everything that separates you and you just want to crumple and say that you love him and you can't live without him and ask him how he could _DO THIS TO YOU?_  
  
But you won't.  
  
Because he's an honourable man but you think he would break at seeing you doing that and whatever happens you just want him to be happy. And apparently he is, even without you.  
  
You won't show him how much you hurt, how much you love him, how much you _needwantcrave_ him, because you can't have him and he can't have you and nothing that you can say will change anything, can get rid of the ring on his finger.  
  
He's not yours anymore.  
  
You'll always love him but you can't have him.  
  
But the least you can do is listen to what he has to say and watch how he says it.  
  
And as you watch him speak you have to cross your arms across your chest to physically restrain yourself from going over to him, because there are lines which cannot be crossed  
  
_By a handler and his asset/by a married man and his formerly dead girlfriend_  
  
There are new lines now and you've only just started to learn them but learn them you will because there are more important things than protocol now, things like wives and wedding rings and oaths sworn in good faith.  
  
_There are lines you can't cross_  
  
There have always been rules in your relationship with him:  
  
**Protocol**  
  
You shouldn't do these kinds of things with your handler, exchange longing looks across an empty warehouse, talk about watches and Trattoria de Nardi and the Kings and give picture frames for Christmas presents – _you shouldn't do these things but you do because you think you're falling in love with him and just maybe he feels something back in return and he's your ally and you need him so badly it hurts._  
  
**Parents**  
  
You shouldn't be in love with a man whose father was killed by your mother, and he shouldn't be in love with you. It's disrespectful to his father's memory and it's wrong and there are too many issues to deal with and your mother rips him apart every time he sees her, you know, you've seen the footage from her cell [You look just like him], and you'll never be properly able to talk about your mother with him, and he'll never be able to talk about his father with you. _You shouldn't love him but you do and your family history should prevent it but it doesn't and so it'll just be carried around by you both as emotional baggage, weighing you down until the day you die._  
  
**And  
  
now  
  
he's married.**  
  
You shouldn't be in love with a married man, and he shouldn't still look this broken over your death, shouldn't still be this haunted and desolate.   
  
_  
but.  
every.  
word.  
he.  
says.  
says.  
i.   
love.  
you.  
and.  
it's.  
killing.  
me.  
_  
  
Or is this just what you want to hear?  
  
You have new lines to avoid crossing, new rules to govern the game you've been playing since the day you met and you will play until the day you die.  
  
You have new lines to avoid crossing, but the only thing you can think of as you stand here watching him tell you about how he self-destructed is:  
  
_How can he have felt so much then and  
  
not.  
  
feel.  
  
anything.  
  
now?_  
  
He says that he was so in love with you it nearly killed him and you can see in his eyes how true it was, how close it drove him to the edge.  
  
You never told anyone that you contemplated suicide after Danny's death, how all you had wanted was to bring down SD-6 in one final act of revenge – and then all you had just imagined yourself doing was dying a quiet death somewhere.   
  
But that was before you met Vaughn, before you fell in love with him like you did.  
  
But you didn't love Danny anywhere near as much as you loved Vaughn, as much as you believed he loved you.  
  
If you had lost him you would be dead.  
  
It's as simple as that, you know. If he had died you would be _dead_, and you know that with such savage conviction that you just want to scream at him and ask him how he's possibly alive and how on _earth_ he _moved on._  
  
But as he tells you about how you had started talking to him after you had died you feel shivers running down your spine as you can hear how close he had come to losing it all and you just want to cry because he had loved you so much and oh, God, you just want him so badly.  
  
You love him so much it hurts.  
  
But you can't have him.  
  
Because there are rules.  
  
_And this time you have to keep them._  
  
But that doesn't make it hurt any less, doesn't make the longing any less intense.  
  
It doesn't make it any easier to see the man you _knew_ you would one day marry married to another woman, doesn't make it any easier to see him stand before you and tell him that he loved you so much it nearly killed him.  
  
And it doesn't stop you crying yourself to sleep every night, hugging a pillow that's not yours in a bed that's not yours wanting him so desperately that you think you'll go crazy yourself.  
  
It doesn't stop you from being consumed by longing for someone that   
_  
you  
  
can't   
  
have._  
  
There's still an aching need that penetrates every part of your body, permeates every part of your soul until it consumes you until all you are is your need for him   
  
_and   
  
there   
  
is  
  
NOTHING  
  
you   
  
can   
  
do   
  
about  
  
it._  
  
And all you wonder is how he could ever have moved on.   
  
Because that's the only thing he says that you have a problem understanding.  
  
Because when he tells you that he loved you so much it nearly killed him, and you look into his eyes?   
  
All you can see your own pain and longing and need staring back at you, and you don't doubt him for a second when he says that he loved you so much it nearly killed him.  
  
Because it's killing you now.  
  
  
  
  
Well. Yeah. I still can't watch that scene without nearly crying. Vaughn's voice as he says that it nearly killed him - good grief, that scene *still* gives me goosebumps. It's one of the best S/V scenes *ever*, I swear. And it's such good cannon fodder for fic.  
  
If you liked it, please review!   
  
  
Em 


End file.
